iMIDIPatchbay lets you organize your whole MIDI setup from one central point. Do you often divide your keyboards into zones to assign different sounds which might come from external sound expanders? Do you need to
send Program Changes to your MIDI equipment? Well, then iMIDIPatchbay is definitely the right tool for you!

$12.99

That's what iMIDIPatchbay looks like on the iPad

List of features

Create split and layer configurations very easily

Support for up to 4 master keyboards (In-App purchase)

Send volume and other control changes to your sound devices

Send Program Changes to your sound devices

Transpose sounds in octave steps

Transpose the hole rig in half-tone steps

Filter controller data (sustain, pitch bend etc.)

Store configurations as songs for later recall

Switch songs of iMIDIPatchbay from another app or MIDI
device via Program Changes

Switch songs while holding down keys or holding
e.g. the sustain pedal without getting stuck notes

Play all your sounds even if you don't have all your master keyboards with
you: "master switches" allow you to make another master act as a substitute
for it (advanced feature!)

Link multiple PDFs (e.g. sheet music or notes) from Dropbox to each song (In-App purchase)

Backup settings to Dropbox

UI which is optimized for live usage

Universal app for iPad and iPhone

iMIDIPatchbay Tutorials: Getting Started

In this video, you'll learn about the basic concepts of iMIDIPatchbay:

What's new in iMIDIPatchbay 1.4?

The user 'hisdudeness38' was the first to test the recent version of iMIDIPatchbay
and was nice enough to create a video about it:

Support further innovation

Do you love iMIDIPatchbay and think it's worth much more than the actual price in the App Store? Do you like the email support
that you get for free? With the following button, you can easily make a donation and say "thank you" or tell me what new feature you
would like to see in iMIDIPatchbay.

And don't forget to write a review in the App Store. Thank you!

What people say...

☆☆☆☆☆"This thing rocks!! - Almost too simple to use and program. Ties my entire rig together perfectly. Plays well with other(s) apps!! Wonderful support as well. Just great and affordable !!!!!!!!!"— Jorr92, United States

☆☆☆☆☆"iMIDIPatchbay is a very versitaile tool for any keyboarder considering to integrate an iPad in his live keyboard setup. With the decent performance of the latest iPads and a multitude of excellent softsynths availbe, this has become a very attractive option.The program has an excellent look and feel, you can see that a lot of thought has been put in the usability on stage.The price looks a bit steep for the iPad platform, so I was a bit reluctant at first, but in the end this was money well spent, worth every $ / €."— Groove1963, Germany

☆☆☆☆☆"If you have a keyboard without extensive Midi functionality but you want to control additional hardware by Midi THIS is the app to setup almost any kind of Midi routing you want"— Hisdudeness38, Germany

☆☆☆☆☆"For keyboard splitting, your app is definitely my first choice. [...] I do like the easy access of your app"— Nick Trass, Australia

☆☆☆☆☆"Simple to get around and setup, easy to navigate, intuitive UI, it does what it does really well! But more importantly, it's Nord friendly! ^^"— Soratach, Thailand

☆☆☆☆☆"Killer App"— Apps4iDevices.com

☆☆☆☆☆"This is all I need to build my sounds in the same way as I do on my Nord Stage keyboard, but with a wider choice of synths. Today's iPad with A6X CPU already allows a few nice synths to run simultaneously, I decided to break my wallet and give this modern music rig a try and end up with something I could not imagine for that price. Great App. Thx."— frantzkb, France

What exactly can I do with iMIDIPatchbay?

As a keyboard player, you most probably know about splitting and layering sounds.
While this can be done relatively easy on professional keyboards, it becomes more
complex if your gear consists of multiple keyboards and sound expanders.

Let's say you want to play the internal piano sound in combination with a string
sound of an external sound expander, but the latter should only be triggered by keys
higher than middle C. For that, you need to a) select the piano sound on the keyboard,
b) select the string sound on the sound expander, and c) make the expander only
respond to notes higher than middle C. Although this is a small example, it still
can be tricky if your sound expander has a small display and tiny buttons.
And when performing on stage, you definitely have to switch both devices to the
right program before starting to play. Everything becomes more and more complex
if you intend to use more sounds and if you want controllers like pitch bend or
sustain to affect only a subset of the active sounds.

iMIDIPatchbay makes building such configurations a lot easier than it
has ever been before.

MASTER and EXTERN sections

iMIDIPatchbay is divided into sections. There are four “EXTERN” sections which are
used to send MIDI data to four sound sources. These can be on separate devices or
in one multitimbral device, the only important thing is that each sound is listening
on an individual MIDI channel or MIDI device.

The four “MASTER” sections are used to send MIDI data back to the master keyboard. Using these
sections usually only makes sense if the corresponding master keyboard is also a sound source, i.e.
a normal keyboard with internal sounds. Above each “MASTER” section, you can find its
split point configuration which is described below.

Defining keyboard zones on each master keyboard

The main purpose of iMIDIPatchbay is creating split and layer configurations for
your sounds. For that, each of your master keyboards can be divided in to up to
three keyboard zones called “LO”, “UP” and
“HI” which are divided by two split points (”LO Split Note” and “HI Split Note”). You
define the number of zones by pressing the buttons “2” or “3”, and define the split
points by holding “Set LO Split Note” or “Set HI Split Note” and then playing the desired note
on the keyboard. Read further to learn how to use that zones for individual sounds.

Assigning sounds to keyboard zones

By default, each section is off. You turn it on by tapping the ON button. When
the section is on, all notes which are played on master keyboard number 1 (red) are routed to
the corresponding sound source. By holding the same button, you select the keyboard
zones which are active for this section: You can either hold and wait while the app
cycles through the zone selections, or hold and play a note within the zone(s) you
want to be activated. It is also possible to select no zone.

If you want to use the section with a master keyboard other than number 1, you
just have to play a note on that keyboard while holding the ON button. You will
see that the colors of the active zones change accordingly (master 2: green, master 3: blue, master 4: yellow)

Filtering out controllers

By default, all control changes which are coming from the assigned master keyboard are
routed to the sound source. However, you can easily filter out some of them by
pressing the ON button and touching the desired controller, e.g. the pitch bend
or the sustain pedal. You can reactivate it with another touch.

It is also possible to use the controllers of different master keyboards. In the
screenshot above, the section is assigned pitch bend and modulation (and notes) of
master 1 (red) and sustain and expression of master 2 (green). As another example,
you don't have to carry one sustain pedal for each of your keyboards anymore - just use
one for all keyboards.

The supported controllers are sustain (CC64), after-touch, modulation wheel (CC1),
pitch bend and expression pedal (CC11). All other controllers can be filtered out in
the settings.

Sending controller values

Each “EXTERN” section has two parameter knobs and a parameter select button (“>”). With
those you can control volume, pan, reverb and chorus of the sound source. Tip: Use
two fingers to adjust the value more precisely.

By holding “>”, you can activate “Send on Load” which will make iMIDIPatchbay send the
value of the selected parameter always when the current song is recalled.

With the octave shift buttons, you can transpose the sound in 12-half-tones steps.

Master switches

iMIDIPatchbay allows you to control your sounds with up to four master keyboards, hence, you are able
to play piano sounds with your weighted keys and synth sounds with your unweighted keyboard. But
what if you have to leave one of them at home, e.g. for a small gig with limited space in the car or on
the stage?

With the "Master Switches" feature, you can easily exclude a master keyboard from your gear
and trigger the assigned sounds with another master. All you have to do is going to "Setup"
and setting "Device" and "Channel" of the master to those of another master keyboard. On the main screen,
you will find buttons which let you quickly decide as which master the master keyboard should act now. You can
even layer masters by tapping two or more buttons simultaneously. The great thing is: you don't have to
change anything in your distinct songs. And as soon as you have all your masters keyboards with you again,
you just need to set them back to individual input settings and everything works as before.

In the example in the left image, the masters 1, 2 and 3 are all assigned to the same device and channel.
Currently, the master keyboard plays the sounds which have been assigned to master 2 or 3.

If you never use four masters anyway, you can utilize "Master Switches" for quickly
switching between sounds within a song. Assign one sound to master 1 and another sound to master 2
and make sure that both masters have identical "Device" and "Channel" settings. Now, you can switch
between those sounds by toggling between the masters.

Storing your configuration

After building your configuration, you can store it by pressing the “SAVE SONG” button.
If you press “COPY SONG” instead, this will store the configuration under a new name. You can
change the name of a song by tapping on the name in the display which will make the keyboard show up.
After changing the name, don't forget to store.

Besides naming and saving songs, you can create setlists and arrange your songs in them. Just
press “Setlists” which will first show the screen to create and open setlists. After opening a
a setlist, you can quickly step from song to song. If you press “Edit”, you can add, rename, delete
and rearrange songs, and rename the setlist.

When sending Program Changes to iMIDIPatchbay, it will switch to the corrensponding
position in the currently selected setlist. If no setlist is selected, the songs will
be recalled in alphabetical order.

Linking PDFs from Dropbox to your songs

When displaying a setlist, you can add multiple PDF documents to each song. Select a song and press the “Edit” button and
then “Insert Document”. If you haven't connected your Dropbox account to iMIDIPatchbay yet, Dropbox will let you
do that now. After that, you'll find a folder called “Apps/iMIDIPatchbay/Sheets” in your Dropbox.

Any PDF file that you uploaded to this folder using the Dropbox app or from your computer, can be linked to a song in
iMIDIPatchbay by pressing “Insert Document”. This will show a window with all files in that folder. Once a PDF is linked
to a song in iMIDIPatchbay, it will be synced automatically. This means that you can even
make changes to your PDF files afterwards without having to import them again.

PDFs of a song are displayed next to the setlist if the iPad is in landscape. In portrait mode, the
PDFs are below the setlist and can be slid up to cover the full screen. If you reached the end, you can easily jump to the next song.

What do I need to get started?

There is one thing you need besides your current gear (and besides an iOS device if
you don’t already have one): a CoreMIDI interface. There are some on the market,
e.g. iRig MIDI or iConnectMIDI. The latter offers many ports so it really is
predestined to be used with iMIDIPatchbay. However, by using the THRU ports of your
keyboards/sound expanders or external MIDI splitters/mergers you may also be fine
with a smaller interface - it depends on your application.

If you have a proper interface, connect your keyboards and sound expanders to the
iOS device. Then, press the “Setup” button and configure the “Device” and “Channel” fields so that
iMIDIPatchbay receives the data of you master keyboards. The “MIDI IN” LED in the main
screen should flash now if you play on one of your keyboards.

In the main screen, press the button with the MIDI Icon to get to the section's settings.
For each section, you need to specify “Device” and “Channel” where the corresponding sound
source is listening.

There are other options on that screen which allow you to switch the MIDI device to
a specific program (given by MSB, LSB and program number) or to filter out control
changes.

What makes iMIDIPatchbay so special?

iMIDIPatchbay aims to be used on stage. As I'm a live keyboardist
myself and make frequent usage of the app, a great user experience and ease of use
is taken care of. While some other apps also offer routing for MIDI data on iOS,
none of them addresses the needs of live musicians. For example, iMIDIPatchbay
allows to switch songs while still holding down keys without interrupting the
sound. Furthermore, the user interface’s artwork fits nicely to real hardware
devices.